FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cory Bythrow, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 216-4458
Washington, D.C. – In response to the House of Representatives passage of H.R. 273, a bill to extend the federal pay freeze through 2013, NFFE National President William R. Dougan issued the following statement.
“What happened on Capitol Hill this morning was politics at its worst. Rather than approve a modest 0.5% pay adjustment for millions of middle class federal employees, the House chose to make a cheap political statement.
This vote was not about controlling spending. After two years of frozen pay, slashed budgets, and increased pension costs, it was about delivering critical relief to our federal workers. By every measure, Congress failed to deliver on that today.
The Republican leadership who championed this bill should be ashamed for tying a Congressional pay increase to a federal workers pay increase. Even members of their own caucus called it a ‘political stunt.’ Members of Congress didn’t ask for a pay increase, and most certainly didn’t ask for a third year of frozen pay for their federal employee constituents. But rather than separate the two issues, they rolled them into one bill, forcing members to freeze their own constituents pay for another year.
It is precisely these kind of political games that got our government into the mess it’s in, and nothing will change until we stand up and demand better from our elected officials. When millions of Americans livelihoods are at stake, as they were this morning, we deserve better than what we’ve been getting.”